Chris Mortensen, who reported that Michael Vick is unlikely to be indicted, has already backpeddled on that claim.  Of course, he backpeddled after Michael Vick was indicted.  He attributed the misinformation to the Falcons' belief that he would not be indicted, so his hands were clean.  Mort, you're a reporter.  You are the sum of your sources.  You have the ability to discern what's accurate.  Perhaps you could use mutliple sources to develop a consensus.

But wait - there's more!  Colherd Cowin (still awaiting the anagram) asked the appropriate question.  If the league is going to let him play, how will all this affect his performance?  He then went down the path of Kobe Bryant to cite an example of an embattled athlete performing under pressure.  Mort then brought up the name of Ray Lewis.  He had his best year and the Ravens won the Super Bowl.  So there's an implication there.  Here's the problem: Ray Lewis is what we call in the business "really good at football."  Alternatively, Michael Vick is what we in the business like to call "good enough at football."  If the Flacons trade for Brian Urlacher, I'll retract this post.

If anyone has a good anagram for Colin Cowherd, I'd gladly make it his permanent IJWMFTT nickname.  I don't need to say that whatever happened in the Benoit household was heinous.  It was, but it does not provide license for talking heads to provide half truths.  Colherd just declared that 100 wrestlers have died at an early age.  Perhaps if you scoured the history of major federations and the independent circuit, you would get 100 deaths.  Ah but Colherd attributed EVERY one of these deaths to steroid use.  I will post the list of dead wrestlers, and off the top of my head point to all the ones not steroid related.

Chris Von Erich - 21 <--NSR
Mike Von Erich - 23  <--NSR
Louie Spiccoli - 27
Art Barr - 28
Gino Hernandez - 29
Jay Youngblood - 30
Rick McGraw - 30
Joey Marella - 30 <---NSR
Ed Gatner - 31
Buzz Sawyer - 32
Crash Holly - 32 <---NSR
Kerry Von Erich - 33
D.J. Peterson - 33
Eddie Gilbert - 33 <---NSR
The Renegade - 33
Owen Hart - 33 <---Falling to your death, steroids same thing right?
Chris Candido - 33 <--NSR
Adrian Adonis - 34 <--Car Accident, steroids same thing right?
Gary Albright - 34
Bobby Duncum Jr. - 34 <--NSR
Yokozuna - 34 <--NSR (The guy was near 600 lbs at one point)
Big Dick Dudley - 34
Brian Pillman - 35
Marianna Komlos - 35
Pitbull #2 - 36
The Wall/Malice - 36
Leroy Brown - 38
Mark Curtis - 38 <--NSR
Eddie Guerrero - 38
Davey Boy Smith - 39
Johnny Grunge - 39
Vivian Vachon - 40
Jeep Swenson - 40
Brady Boone - 40
Terry Gordy - 40
Bertha Faye - 40 <---NSR
Billy Joe Travis - 40
Chris Benoit - 40
Larry Cameron - 41
Rick Rude - 41
Randy Anderson - 41 <---Cancer, steroids same thing right?
Bruiser Brody - 42 <---Murdered, steroids same thing right?
Miss Elizabeth - 42
Big Boss Man - 42
Earthquake - 42 <---Cancer, steroids same thing right?
Mike Awesome - 42 <---NSR
Biff Wellington - 42
Ray Candy - 43
Nancy Benoit (Woman) - 43 <---I'll be lenient and call this SR
Dino Bravo - 44 <---Murdered, steroids same thing right?
Curt Hennig - 44
Bam Bam Bigelow - 45 <--NSR
Jerry Blackwell - 45
Junkyard Dog - 45
Hercules - 45
Andre the Giant - 46 <---NSR 
Big John Studd - 46
Chris Adams - 46 <--Murdereed, steroids same thing right?
Mike Davis - 46
Hawk - 46
Dick Murdoch - 49
Jumbo Tsuruta - 49
Rocco Rock - 49
Sherri Martel - 49 <---NSR
Moondog Spot - 51
Ken Timbs - 53
Uncle Elmer - 54 <---NSR
Pez Whatley - 54
Eddie Graham - 55
Tarzan Tyler - 55
Haystacks Calhoun- 55 <---NSR
Giant Haystacks - 55 <---NSR
The Spoiler - 56
Kurt Von Hess - 56
Moondog King - 56
Gene Anderson - 58
Dr. Jerry Graham - 58
Bulldog Brown - 58
Tony Parisi - 58
Rufus R. Jones - 60
Ray Stevens - 60
Stan Stasiak - 60
Terry Garvin - 60
Boris Malenko - 61
Little Beaver - 61
Sapphire - 61
Shohei Baba - 61
Dick the Bruiser - 62
Wilbur Snyder - 62
George Cannon - 62
Karl Krupp - 62
Dale Lewis - 62
Gorilla Monsoon - 62
Hiro Matsuda - 62
Bad News Brown - 63
Bulldog Brower - 63
Wahoo McDaniel - 63

The list has 97 names.  And some of these folks made it into their 60s.  Those names, plus the ones I pointed to leaves us with 54 names max (Remember I just went off the top of my head).  I'm not saying that steroids aren't harmful.  They are.  But it's a tad irresponsible to take an industry, already marginalized, and sensationalize a story that touches on the industry.  Cowherd has shown bias against this industry before, even getting personal with its fans, some of whom may also be listeners of his.  It's this bias that doesn't make him an authority figure in the Chris Benoit case.

Wow - I need to rename this thing so that it has a catchy acronym.  Well I'd be remiss if I didn't make a Michael Vick related post.  Truth be told, had IJWMFTT been started during football season, half the posts would be Vick related.  Now let me say this - up until now, I never had a personal issue with Michael Vick.  He is a football player.  He plays it well enough (more on that in a minute).  He plays football whilst likely having a skeleton in his closet.  A/P clerks have skeletons in their closets.  So long as they cut your expense check on time, it's not a big deal if she flips off a bad driver on the way home.

That said, the skeletons being spoken of right now are not of a figurative nature.  Now, I may have piqued someone's interest with my earlier wording when I declared Michael Vick "good enough."  What does that mean?  It means that he probably is one of the 32 best quarterbacks, and as such, will have a job in the NFL.  What he is NOT, is the elite quarterback that hypists factions led by the likes of Joe Thiesman and Stu Scott would have you believe.

Readers can't say that I'm downgrading his skills based upon his personal issues.  Nor can they say that I don't identify with his hip-hop image.  Here at IJWMFTT, we deal in objectivity.  I did this quick study two years ago.  I sent it via e-mail to all the people with whom I share a Sunday afternoon.  It was basically an analysis of Michael Vick's performance versus the performance of "replacement quarterback defined" Kyle Boller.  In 2005, Boller threw for more yards, had the same TD/INT ratio, a similar completion percentage, a similar winning percentage, and was sacked 11 fewer times.  "But the rushing yardz!01010!! Revolutionizing the position!!01010!"  Save it.  Teams are willing to let you scamper for 10-12 yards on 3rd and 15, especially if you're the one who couldn't make the read and got sacked on 2nd and 7.

So that's Michael Vick in a nutshell.  On to fileting talk radio personalities (Plus Cowherd is on soon.  The potential for material right there is endless).  Ryan Stewart cohosts the Atlanta based "2 Live Stew" program (Now that's a catchy name for your niche in the world!).  He was just on Mike and Mike in the Morning.  He declared that the feeling he got when hearing the news about Vick's indictment was the same feeling he had when he found out that Barry Sanders retired.  In fairness, Stewart did play five years for the Lions.  That said, really?  Is it really the same?  Your best player player retires over a contract squabble.  That's the same as using property to mame, kill, and bet on animals and getting punished for it?  REALLY?

So WFAN's Joe and Evan (I missed them so much last week, what with Mike and Russo on vacation) just declared that the Oakland A's firesale has begun.  At first, I thought, "Holy Crap!  Why did Billy Beane trade Eric Chavez?"  Then I realized that they were referring to last night's trade of Jason Kendall to the Cubs.  The same player who Baseball Prospectus wrote off before 2006, is apparently the impetus for a firesale.  Time to quote one of my esoteric statistics:

Kendall's OPS the last three years: .666, .709, .542

An OPS of .700 is pretty much the OPS of a replacement level player.  So over the past three seasons, Kendall was barely above replacement level once.  In other words, the A's could play their AAA catcher and realize the same level of output.  Not only will the A's do that now (Sorry Joe but Piazza will remain the DH), the A's have managed to get someone in return.  A player who was just as well off by being jettisoned from the team, was sent away for someone in return.  Correct that - two people in return.  Clearly, the Cubs were trading for a name, not for value.  If either prospect pans out, Billy Beane can lay claim to having made another "F'ing A trade."

What I'm trying to do is hold hosts to egregious errors.  Remember, this medium is increasingly becoming the choice of media for sports fans.  The personalities have the opportunity to shape public opinion.  Today's discussion on WFAN has been utterly ridiculous.  I don't want to lambaste the callers, of whom I expect idiocy.  But when the normally solid Chris Carlin lends credence to these crackbrain theories, I have to assign him some bandwith.

A-Rod is being toasted today.  Yesterday was an off day.  Lord help him if he flies out tonight.  I'm going to go ahead and paraphrase the typical caller.  "We need to cut him lose.  I hope he opts out.  We can save money.  That's the problem with the Yankees, no role players.  Where's the Scott Brosius on this team?"  That's typical caller speak, but the host, when speaking of A-Rod, should NEVER suggest that perhaps "...they pickup Joe Crede or soemone like that" as a good fit.  I can quote many statistics, some of which are called esoteric by old guard writers.  None of said stats includes a trying really hard index.  None of said stats is called PRORP (Plays role over replacement player).  Let's reference some REAL numbers here.  The typical year of A-Rod vs some "real ballplayers"

A-Rod: OPS .965, EqA .311, Avg WARP3 10.96, Avg FRAR 22 (Includes three seasons out of position), 2007 VORP 54.5 (76.5 total runs above replacement), Runs/27 8.1

Scott Brosius: OPS .745 (5 percent below adjusted all time), EqA .253, Avg WARP3 5.02, Avg FRAR 18, Avg VORP 7.52 (25.5 total runs above replacement), Runs/27 4.66

Joe Crede: OPS .751 (8 percent below adjusted all time), EqA .247, Avg WARP3 3.86 (repeating of course - Leeroyyyyy Jenkins!), Avg FRAR 14.5, 2007 VORP -9.8, Runs/27 4.64

Let me understand this, Yankee fans want to win.  In order to win, the Yankees should 1) Rid themselves of A-Rod 2)Hire a role player like Joe Crede.  To express their argument numerically, the Yankees should dump 76.5 runs per year and 7 wins per year.  After all the Yankees are 10 games up and winning all their games by 4+ runs, so losing this production (and the payroll) is beneficial, correct?  Oh the Yankees are 10 games back in the standings.  So scoring fewer runs and winning fewer games helps how?

I can't believe I have to write this.  Alex Rodriguez is the best player in baseball.  Get it through your heads.  I know it's en vogue, the cause celbre, the insert fancy French phrase here, to suggest any other name as the best player.  After all, if we say it, and said person gets hot for ten games, we can jump up and down saying "Told ya!"  If we're wrong, we just move on to the next crazy prediction.